


The Final Correction

by elbowsinsidethedoor



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Bad Science, M/M, slightly graphic violence, subway era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2020-11-09 05:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20848364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elbowsinsidethedoor/pseuds/elbowsinsidethedoor
Summary: I've ended this apocalyptic story prematurely. It was too hard for me to write about a fictional pandemic in the midst of an actual one.





	1. aim for the head

**Author's Note:**

> Carter is alive in this world because I want her to be!

Joss could sense the crisp cool of early autumn, the low humidity, even indoors at her desk. It was late October and she could finally believe the heat of summer was behind them. If only it would stay like this for a while, she thought, not turn cold.

The precinct was surprisingly quiet. Half the force was out sick, not just at the Eighth but throughout the city. She’d anticipated a hectic day, assuming they’d have more on their plates than they could handle but it hadn’t worked out that way. She could hear the paper shuffle of Fusco ruffling files, the tapping when he gathered folders into stacks.

“Guess the bad guys are out sick too,” he said, glancing at her over his glasses.

She nodded.

Calls were coming in, but not for the Task Force. Joss saw what had to be the third or fourth team of uniforms head out.

Fusco went for coffee and when he came back told her, “It’s all for traffic control at St. Vincent’s and a couple of clinics.”

Joss couldn’t remember a flu outbreak this serious in her lifetime. Taylor was at home, and she knew Fusco had kept Lee home as well. Neither of their kids was sick, thank God, but the Public Schools were encouraging parents to keep children at home, if possible, due to the growing epidemic.

“I’m thinking maybe we cut out early,” he said.

With so little going on, it was tempting. Taylor was fine on his own but it would be nice for once to have enough time to shop, to actually cook a good meal instead of grabbing take out. She was about to agree with him when her cell phone rang. His rang at the same time. Caller ID unknown.

“Maybe not,” she said, giving him a look he’d understand. She kissed the notion of the home-cooked meal goodbye as she picked up her phone, expecting to hear John’s voice. At least today, she thought, they had time to help him.

It wasn’t John. It was Harold. The way Fusco was looking at her confirmed that they were on the same call.

“This is an emergency. You must drop whatever you are doing, detectives, and get to your children. Wait at home for us to come get you. Listen carefully — it is vitally important that you avoid contact with anyone exhibiting erratic, violent behavior.” The man sounded dead serious and she felt a lurch of fear in her gut.

“Our kids are home ‘cause of this flu,” Fusco said. “What’s the deal, Finch?”

There was a brief pause before he answered. “It’s more than a flu. If you encounter violence … aim … for the head.” The words, his struggle to get them out sent chills down her back. “Please hurry,” he said. “Gather no more than you can carry. Go. Go now. We’ll get to you as soon as we can.” He hung up.

It was surreal, especially in the quiet of the station. If it were anyone but Harold, even John, she’d have thought it was crazy, a prank. Not Harold. Not the way he sounded. Her eyes met Fusco’s and she felt her heart beating hard in her chest. Harold was a man who knew things, things no one else knew, things that others would find hard, even impossible to believe. She looked at her coworkers in the distance, tried to think of what she could say to spread Harold’s warning.

As if reading her mind, Fusco shook his head. He was taking it just as seriously as she was. They rose almost simultaneously to their feet. His expression was tight. She had a million questions but she didn’t speak and neither did he as they headed out of the station. She looked at the people they were leaving behind and her heart sank — how could she explain Harold’s warning to them? Aim for the head. Why would they believe her, what could she say — “a genius I know says you need to get out of here.” Why, go where? She had no answers, only a mysterious friend whose mysteries she tolerated because she’d learned to trust him over time.

Keep moving, she thought, picturing Taylor at home. She pulled out her phone to call him.

Steps from the parking lot she heard someone scream, someone yelling and a cop shouting, “Police!”

She started toward the sound by instinct, shutting her phone. Less than half a block up the side street a cop was frozen in his tracks, staring at a bloody apparition and shouting a warning at a woman dressed in smart office clothes, covered in blood. She was clutching at a man, chewing at his face and neck, ripping the flesh with her teeth as he tried in vain to push her off him and a second man beat at her with his briefcase. Screams for help from a gathering crowd. Joss’s brain wanted to reject what she saw, torn between her training as a cop and the warning from Harold. She raised her service weapon and did the unthinkable. Took aim at the woman’s head and pulled the trigger. Both she and the man whose face was gone hit the ground. Fusco jerked her arm.

“Carter, we gotta get out of here. Think of your kid.” Heart racing she holstered her weapon, hearing the words, “avoid contact,” echoing in her head. The uniform stared at her, eyes round with horror.

“Officer, get your family out of the city if you can,” she said. “Remember this — aim for the head.”

~

The machine had gone to war. Out of Harold’s hands. Of its own volition. John had rushed to the subway at Harold’s terse summons and found him and Root glued to their computers, frantically trying to assist the machine as the AI titans battled. Mostly, he watched Harold and felt helpless. Unable to contribute he left them to their labors and went to get food; something tangible, necessary. Privately, he often thought the world would be better off rid of both artificial super intelligences, but it wasn’t a sentiment to share when Harold was fighting so hard to save his creation.

The streets were strangely quiet. Closed signs had sprouted in shop windows all over the city. It wasn’t unusual in this neighborhood, where many had lost relatives in China to the SARS virus, to see people here and there with paper masks for protection during flu and cold seasons. This morning, the few locals out on the street all wore masks covering nose and mouth and they eyed his bare face with suspicion.

The only sizable number of people he encountered were outside a neighborhood clinic. Sawhorse barricades had been set up by a couple of beat cops to corral the long line.

Eventually he found an open coffee shop. Armed with a bag of sandwiches and bottles of water he headed back. At least I can feed the troops, he thought. As he neared the subway sirens echoed loudly in the relatively quiet streets. Distant sounds, voices rising in commotion. Whatever was happening, was happening behind him and he reasoned it must be coming from the crowd at the clinic. People impatient for treatment, weary of waiting to be seen.

On the stairs to the sub level, John stopped to listen to a strange noise, hard to identify. Soft guttural groaning and snuffling, wet, crunching sounds, like an animal eating. He imagined a dog had cornered a rat. Slowly and silently he descended far enough to see ahead. There were two people on the floor in front of the vending machine. A man was down in a pool of blood - the other man … was the animal, eating. Wrong, his brain screamed, too wrong to live. He checked the impulse to go for his gun. The last thing he wanted was a report to the police of shots fired. He set the food down, eyes finding a fire extinguisher mounted on the wall. Then he moved swiftly, grasping and swinging the canister into the head of the attacker. The need to destroy an abomination was stronger than any leash Harold had put on his killing instinct. He pulled the bodies away from entry and made his way down into the station, trying to frame what he’d just seen in words, falling into the training of a scout with intel.

But he made no report -- Harold held up a hand to stop him from speaking. He was fixated on his computer screen.

“The Ice 9 virus,” he said, his voice gone whispery. “The machine has passed its own death sentence to bring down Samaritan.”

John didn’t understand the details of what was happening, could not comprehend the outpouring of data on Harold’s and Root's screens — but the words, when they appeared, were plain as day.

“Father, forgive me.” The words wavered on the screen. “I tried to stop the final correction. I failed.”

The term, final correction, conjured the horrors of Nazi Germany, its final solution. John felt the link in his gut between the ominous words and the massive flu epidemic. With its last gasp, Samaritan had unleashed a bioweapon. Root stood up, stepping away from her laptop, face pale, hand moving to touch where the implant was embedded behind her ear.

“First exposure victims manifested flu-like symptoms,” she said, “but the disease will spread by infectious attacks.” Her eyes were glistening with tears as she listened. “The infected will not die easily. The final stage will imitate death, but impulses will survive in the brain … to spread the infection. Loud noise … gunfire, will attract them.”

John’s earpiece came alive with a crackle of static and he heard the haunting, wavering words, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Keep my father alive.” Text alerts chimed on his phone and there was silence. Its final transmission to him, a series of coordinates.

John steeled his heart, seeing Harold bent over his keyboard as if gut-punched, his face drenched in silent tears. There was no time for comforting, for grief. John knelt in front of him, turning Harold’s chair to face him.

“We need every minute,” he told him. “I’ve seen it — outside our door. Contact Carter and Fusco. Tell them to get their kids. Try to get hold of Zoe. Tell them we’re coming for them.”

“Yes,” Harold agreed, visibly struggling for control. “Yes, I’ll do that.” His voice was thin and reedy but John could see him bracing himself, sitting upright, eyes blinking tears.

He watched to make sure Harold was making the phone calls before quietly sharing the details of what he’d just seen with Root. With relief he saw her assume the mien of the soldier he needed her to be.

“Weapons,” she said, and they proceeded to raid their subway stockpiles for firepower, adding a couple of silencers to the duffel of weapons. They supplemented with whatever blunt force items they could quickly lay their hands on, as well as knives. John hefted an axe from the emergency exit at the last minute and saw Root pick up a crowbar from a pile of construction gear.

There was a sound, a guttural rasping grunt that was now familiar to John, when the door through the vending machine swung open. He held up a hand to delay his friends and went out into the corridor with the axe raised. It was the victim, he saw, the one he’d assumed was dead, now risen and shuffling toward him. He raised the axe and brought the blunt end down on its head, crushing it. He wished that Harold could be spared the grisly sight and tried to shield him as well as he could, taking his arm to get him past the bodies, but even a fleeting glimpse startled a mournful gasp from his friend’s lips. John felt him weaken and sag, like he might drop. He caught him in his arm, propping him up, urging him forward. Root sprang ahead, saying, “We need a van.”

~

The floor was piled high with crammed back-packs and an alarming collection of weapons that Harold was trying to avoid touching with his feet. The stolen panel van had two long bench seats in the back, one down either side. The lack of windows was both a source of frustration and a blessing.

Harold was flanked in the close quarters by Fusco and Zoe. Joss and the two boys faced them. The boys were bracketing Bear.

He was sweating in spite of the cool temperatures, and feeling a persistent queasiness, just shy of nausea, that felt like it might stay with him forever. He envied and thanked God for John and Root, both so cool-headed under pressure, so sure of themselves in the face of danger.

They’d reached Fusco first, he was the closest. Lee had greeted Bear like a long lost friend and the dog had joined him up on the bench to lay his head in his lap. Fusco had gotten up close to the front seats beside Harold, who could see he was shaken but holding together for the sake of his son.

“I heard banging noises from the house next door,” Fusco told him. “One of our neighbors busted out, right through the front window. The guy got tangled up in the bushes. His wife tried to follow and, Jesus, she impaled herself on the broken glass.”

There had been trouble at their last stop, on Zoe’s quiet, tree-lined street. Harold tried not to let his eyes stray to the bloody axe near the back door. There was blood on her jacket as well.

“Not my blood,” she’d said as she swung into the seat beside him. “Not John’s, either. I still don’t know what the hell’s going on, Harold, but I trust you boys enough to jump when you say jump.” She was pale.

He felt wooden, almost numb, aware of an endless pool of tears he couldn't shed, for the machine, for himself, for these precious friends. He had so little to offer in the face of oblivion.

“Thank you,” he said. “All of you, for your trust.” Their eyes were on him.

For years these people had trusted him, in spite of the secrets he’d kept from them. Secrets held so long. Now there was no point. No machine. No Samaritan-controlled government agencies to track them down.

“The virus,” he hesitated, “is a manufactured bioweapon, created by a powerful artificial intelligence.”

How much to say? How much should the children hear? He looked at Joss, and saw the combat veteran she was, at her son, who was stroking Bear’s side. Taking comfort, giving comfort. As if reading Harold’s mind, Joss said, “Our kids are going to have to grow up pretty quick to survive this, Finch. We need to know what we’re facing.”

“The victims … in the advanced stages,” he said, reluctant but determined, “become virtual living dead, remaining active as long as their brains are intact. Their sole purpose is spreading the infection. It’s spread by blood and saliva … through biting.”

“Look out, John,” Root said. “There’s a runner.”

“Hold on in back,” John warned, and the van lurched as a dull thump hit them broadside. Fusco’s arm shot out to keep Harold on the seat and the boys hung onto Bear.

“We hit a runner?” Harold gasped.

“Not a live one, Harry. There’s another one, left lane.” Tires screeched and horns blared around them.

“I think we’re close to Columbia Presbyterian,” Joss said. “It must be overrun.” The van engine revved and they shot forward over what Harold was sure must be a body. Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, it fixed their location in his mind, reaching upper Manhattan.

“Dear god,” he murmured, closing his eyes at the thought of how many must be entering the last stages of the disease, the infected spilling out of hospitals and clinics all over the city.

“Professor,” Fusco’s gruff voice was close to his ear and his arm was still holding Harold in place. “You didn’t abandon us. Now we got your back. Whatever’s out there, we’re gonna make it through.”

He took a deep breath. “My laptop, please.” He pointed at his briefcase that had slid off the top of the pile. Fusco snagged it for him and Harold managed to get it open. The machine was gone but satellites and surveillance cameras were still in operation. He focused on tunneling into these systems to finding their best route out of the city.

“The highway?” Root said.

“No,” he told her. “We need to keep moving up Broadway. The highway is … slowing down. There’s a bottleneck at the bridge exit, getting worse by the minute. People are trying to get out. We haven’t reached full blown panic yet … but I’m afraid it won’t be long. We’ll cut over, farther North.”


	2. waking up alone

A siren alarm. Sameen was groggy, aware she’d been that way for a while, awakening to the siren and then dropping uncontrollably back into a stuporous sleep. There was pain she couldn’t readily identify though it felt familiar, as if parts of her had been hurting for a while.

With a grunt of effort she opened her eyes and tried to sit up.

Hospital bed. Think, she demanded of herself, willing the dizziness to subside. Greer, she thought, mental fog slowly lifting, remembering him standing at her bedside. Weird dreams that almost seemed real. Crazy fucks had used some kind of virtual reality simulation on her. Was this another attempt on her sanity? She reached for the IV still stuck in her arm and winced as she pulled it free. The bag hanging from the pole was empty.

Small room, secure. There was a window in the door. The blare of the alarm was loud despite being muffled by the thick, reinforced door. She remembered being moved into this room after her last escape attempt. Move, she told herself and managed to swing her legs off the bed, stiff, achy from disuse. How long, she wondered. A deep breath for effort and her feet hit the cold floor. She waited to stand until the spinning stopped and then she got up slowly, testing her legs. You can make it, she insisted, eyes focused on the door. One foot after the other, each step stronger as her circulation caught up.

There was no smell of smoke, no sign of a fire in the hallway. She pounded at the locked door in frustration. A man in a lab coat appeared at the end of the corridor and she stared, watching him shuffle toward her, one foot dragging, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. This asshole had either dumped a pot of beef stew down his lab coat or that was blood dried down the front of him, dark reddish brown. Blood, definitely blood. The source was a gaping, ragged wound in his neck. He should be dead. His eyes were wide open, unblinking, the whites were purple with busted veins.

Another simulation. It had to be. It couldn’t be.

No one was responding to the alarm. The shuffling … zombie … what the fuck else could you call that thing that ought-to-be-dead. Her jaw dropped as it got closer and she recognized the ravaged face of Jeremy Lambert. Busted nose, sunken cheeks, the teeth in his wide open mouth were crusty and brown. It was him.

Sameen backed away, her heart pounding, not with fear, but excitement, willing him to come in so she could attack. She didn’t know what the fuck had happened to him but she wanted to finish him off.

“Come on, motherfucker, open the door.” It was looking in at her, pressed up to the door, teeth gnashing on air. It began to bang its head against the glass, and she watched it slowly bash open its own skull until the lights went out, everywhere.

~

Night would fall hard.

“The Ice 9 virus,” Harold said, his soft voice cutting through to John’s heart. “Computerized systems are failing.” The traffic lights had gone out. Storefronts darkened.

They had almost made it out of the city. There was still some light in the sky but John’s first set of coordinates was more than a mile away and they were stuck in a sea of traffic, paralyzed near Mercy Hospital in the Bronx. Cars had pulled up and gotten stuck on the sidewalks trying to maneuver around a massive pile up in the intersection. People were laying on their horns like they could will the cars ahead to move. John could see the infected beginning to appear at the edges of the crowded street, stumbling against the blockade of cars.

It was the last thing in the world he wanted, but it couldn’t be helped.

“We’re gonna have to hoof it,” he said.

Root shot him a sympathetic look.

“At least we’re in striking distance,” she said. He was grateful for her steadiness, the nonchalance that accepted whatever ordeal was to come. She had mapped the coordinates in his phone and identified the first set as an army navy warehouse, still north of them. “I’ve got the route memorized,” she said. “I’ll take the lead, Zoe behind me, then Joss and the boys, Fusco. John, you’ve got Harold. Make sure nothing reaches him or us.”

He agreed, grateful she’d put the main weight on his shoulders. 

“Taylor, you take this,” he heard Joss’s voice. “Lee, hang on to this.” She was giving each of the boys a weapon to hand, a hammer for Taylor, for Lee, a lug nut wrench. “We can do this,” she told them.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lee said.

“We got this, buddy,” Fusco told his son.

“I’ll be in front of you, sport,” Zoe said. She produced a steel baton from her pack and extended it to fighting length. 

As anxious as he was for their safety, John felt proud of his small troop. It was wrong to see the young hands poised for violence, but necessary. John trusted these children of police officers to cope. They had shouldered their packs. Bear too was calmly alert.

“Should I have some sort of … weapon,” Harold ventured.

“I’m your weapon,” John told him. “Just stay alert.”

They weren’t the only ones abandoning their vehicle. Some drivers had stepped out to try to see ahead, others were making their way to the sidewalks. Voices rose around them, confused, angry, frustrated. John heard weeping near by. Some drivers were uncertainly standing by their cars, staring at what looked like fights breaking out at the edges of the pile up. John knew it was the living fighting the infected. He scanned the cars they were passing for trouble and frightened faces looked back out at him, eyes drawn to the gun in one hand and the axe in the other. Harold was clutching his laptop case in his arms. John questioned the reason for hanging onto it with the internet breaking down and power going out, but said nothing when Harold brought it with him. Maybe the man needed it like a security blanket. Maybe there was a use he couldn’t comprehend. John hoped that in a pinch he would at least use it instinctively as a shield or a battering ram.

Shattering glass was becoming a constant as darkness crept up the street, surrounding the isolated illumination of headlights. Looting, and the desperate struggles of those on the edges to fight off the infected. Root kept them weaving through the stalled traffic, the cars buffering the onslaught, giving them time to pick off the sick ones that made it through. There were infected trapped in cars. A muffled squeal from Lee as they squeezed through the intersection and John looked up to see Taylor bring his hammer down on an arm that had shot through an open window. Fusco finished the ghoul off with a shot to the head and the group kept moving.

“You’re okay, boy,” Fusco grunted, reaching to squeeze his son’s shoulder, more to reassure himself than the boy, John thought. Lee was already keeping pace and acknowledged his dad with a nod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've included Shaw's ordeal in this AU but lessened its intensity (for the sake of my sanity -- I can't even watch the torture episodes) and did not stick her halfway around the globe as the POI writers did.


	3. Stillness

Moonlight lit the way. Harold willed himself to keep pace. The adrenaline of fear had helped him push past his limits but he sensed it was fading. They’d reached a blessedly quiet stretch of road, an off-ramp leading to the warehouse district that was their target. It had taken long hours to reach it and the things his friends had done to clear safe passage for him and the children — he didn’t dwell on those grisly images, he couldn’t.

They could still hear distant sounds of violence but he dared to breath deep and let the briefcase he carried hang from his hand at his side. His arms were aching from clutching the thing to his chest.

“We’re close,” John said, and a broad hand rested for a moment on Harold’s shoulder. The brief squeeze communicated a world of comfort to his weary muscles, a silent infusion of the man’s strength, his power. Ahead was a chain link fence. Under any other circumstances this industrial area would be a frightening place to find oneself in the dark but now the darkened, deserted streets signaled safety. Single file they walked through the weeds growing up at the edges of the fence until Root stopped, holding up her hand.

Her oracular implant, he thought, it was sensitive to sounds the rest of them could not hear. Then he too heard something, something he now recognized as the snuffling, grunting sound of the infected. How many, where? He scanned, eyes trying to penetrate the shadows around them.

A deafening crack of gunfire ripped the night. A block away or more, someone was fighting off an attack. More gunshots, and men yelling, getting closer. Whoever was fighting was fleeing in their direction.

“Move,’ John urged, and Harold wrenched his attention away from the strangers’ struggle as Root started them forward again. Please let there be an opening in the fence, he prayed. He glanced up at the barb-wired top of it, feeling desperate for escape even though he knew he could not manage it for himself. The others could scale it without him — he had to make them leave him. He imagined John resisting, but he’d make him go, somehow. Then his eyes fell on Bear whose silent presence at his side he’d nearly forgotten. God no, the dog would sacrifice himself. The sounds of gunfire stopped but the screaming in its wake was far worse. In front of Harold, Fusco stopped suddenly.

“We got company, professor,” he whispered.

“Stil,” John commanded, barely audible but Bear heard him and he became a statue at their side.

The sick materialized out of the darkness ahead, a dozen or more, drawn toward the shooting, the screams. No cover, there was nowhere to hide. Harold was on the verge of begging his friends to climb the fence when he saw Root and Zoe, Carter and Fusco arranging themselves silently around Lee and Taylor, forming a protective barrier. Despairing, he realized that fence climbing was impossible, even if he and Bear were left behind. It would be too loud, the motion would draw the infected. His friends would be pinned at the top by the sharp wire — for god knew how long. Useless, even if he could speak loud enough to persuade them. He felt John’s hands on his upper arms, holding him in place and then the man moved soundlessly in front of him like a shield. He couldn’t speak to say how pointless this was. If anything happened to John … there was no life he could see beyond that.

A cry stuck in his throat and he fought to breathe quietly through his nose. It seemed impossible to get enough air and the smells were vile as the afflicted drew closer. An eternity of breathing in the stench and listening to the dragging, shuffling gait of the undead. He kept his focus on John’s back, his coat. Those square inches of wool were his world until, like a miracle, John turned and Harold saw his face in the moonlight. Not tense. Gazing down at him with a soft expression, a tilt of his head, and Harold realized that the danger had passed and Root was leading them on.

I can make it, he told himself, taking his place in step behind Fusco. He tightened his grip on his briefcase, casting his thoughts ahead to what he hoped he’d find at their destination; the possibility of finding a sat phone. Even before they’d had to abandon their van and move on on foot, he’d been stymied by the rapidly disintegrating telecommunications infrastructure; the Ice 9 virus moving though servers like a careening wrecking ball. If he could tap into what was left of the satellite networks there was a chance he could learn something, a chance they could move on through this world less blind.


	4. Flight Jacket

Emergency lights lit the doorways and dimly the stacks.

“Batteries must have kicked in when the power went out,” Root said.

John was walking the perimeter with her, doing a quick assessment of the aisles. Floor to ceiling warehouse shelving; military surplus, camping gear, outdoor equipment. The machine had guided them to a goldmine. The place had already been hit by looters, there were showcases and crates that had been broken open and emptied of weapons. Some displays were stripped of easy foodstuffs but there was a treasure trove left behind, including vehicles in the cargo bay.

“Could have been the guys we heard down the street,” she said.

“Whoever it was … they worked here. They knew how to turn off the security alarm.”

John lingered on his own to gather clothes in the stacks before heading back to the others. He searched for tough gear for himself: boots, canvas cargo pants, a tactical jacket. He assembled things he hoped Harold would accept, topped by a leather flight jacket. It would suit the pilot in him, he thought, the guy who’d flown through a hurricane, who’d landed a jumbo jet with 167 passengers onboard. Those skills could come in handy again but John chose the jacket for size and because the thick material would protect Harold from teeth. Harold must be protected.

~

Joss took charge of an interior office on the second floor of the warehouse.

“This is the place,” she announced. “We’ll make camp here.” Nobody argued.

The big windowless space was cordoned off by cage-like fencing, no doubt to protect the safe. The padlock had been broken and the safe hung open, raided by the early looters. Good luck with the cash, boys, she thought — it would have a short shelf life on the street. The old world of banks and money were crumbling fast. Part of her responded like a soldier to a shifting, dangerous reality. Her training helped, but this was like a war zone landing in their laps without warning. And her son … her heart ached.

“This will do,” she said, looking around. Better than a five-star hotel for their weary group. Easier to protect.

The office had a collection of beat up desks that Fusco and the boys pushed out of the way. It was comfortable enough once they brought in some sleeping bags from the warehouse inventory. It was close to the bathroom, toilets and running water already felt like a luxury. Fusco and the boys found battery-powered lanterns so the space had some pools of light.

Taylor and Lee were quiet when the camp finally took shape, parked side by side on a cot, watching Zoe stir a pot of rehydrated mac and cheese on a camping stove. Joss felt a complex rush of love, of pride … of fear for them. A smile ultimately touched her lips, seeing the way they were torn between staring at Zoe, and eyeing the food.

She would agree with them that Zoe was a beautiful woman. She’d met her a couple of times, first introduced as John’s wife. The second time, she and Zoe and Shaw had teamed up as bait for a possible stalker.

Zoe was clearly not John’s wife, but also clearly kind of sweet on the guy, she thought. And there might be some interest on his part — the man was hard to read except when it came to Harold, a subject on which she kept her opinions quiet. The fact that John and Harold trusted Zoe, valued her, made her trustworthy in Joss’s eyes too. Nothing she’d seen made her second guess that judgement. In fact, her opinion of her had risen even higher when she saw her instinctively step in front of Taylor to protect him.

Hot food, it would do a world of good for the shell-shocked boys, she thought. For all of them. An army travelled on its stomach. She wished she could do more for Finch. He had commandeered a desk and a lantern and a battery pack that he’d hooked up to his laptop. She saw him produce a slim case from an inside pocket of his coat, the tools inside were as fine as a surgeon’s, for working his particular type of magic. The man looked weary but intent and she was curious when he opened the back of a mil spec radio. She wished she could offer him a hot cup of whatever the tea was that he loved so much, but food would have to do.

~

“You need to sleep.” John’s voice was a whisper near his ear.

“Not now,” Harold said, just as quietly but on the edge of impatient.

The man had made him stop to eat, and stop to change his clothes. Harold had forced himself to remain patient as he’d donned the items John had gathered for him. It was odd to note how well everything fit him — strange to think of John being so aware of his sizes. That thought drifted as his focus returned to the work he was eager to get back to. He was so close to connecting after chasing threads through the ghosts of the internet. Now at last his screen was wavering to life. He felt John leaning in close beside him to gaze at the laptop.

“What are we looking at?”

“The next coordinates from the machine. It’s a hospital … north of here.” He felt John’s hand on his back between his shoulder blades, steadying, calming. It lured him to rest, made him want to succumb to his exhaustion, but he couldn’t.

“I’ve been thinking,” John said, voice as soothing as his hand, “we could do worse than to stay here and … “

“No John.” Harold turned slightly, resisting, and found his friend’s face very close, full of care, full of concern. Startlingly handsome, when by rights he should look as haggard as Harold felt. “We must not delay. I believe that Sameen is in that hospital and we need to reach her.”

“Shaw?”

“I’ve been working to decipher a scrap of code the machine sent as it was dying. The word … indigo. Ms Shaw’s ISA codename. I think it’s possible she is there. The machine sent us here first, and we need to gather necessary supplies but must leave as soon as we can to reach that hospital.”

As if Shaw’s name had conjured her, Root spoke from his other side, her approach as silent as a cat’s.

“I’ll start loading the trucks,” she said. “We’ll let the others sleep as long as we can and then hit the road.”

“You too, Harold,” John insisted. “It’ll take us a good half hour to get everything ready. Lie down and close your eyes. Even a little rest will help.”

"Yes, all right." He knew it was true and did not fight the assistance when John wordlessly helped him up from his cramped position at the desk and onto the cot with its sleeping bag open and ready, a pillow in place. "Thank you," he said, hoping as he did so often, that John knew just how deeply he meant those words.


	5. On The Road

“Two hundred and fifty-one searches complete,” Sameen said out loud, looking around the hospital room from the vantage point of the bed, “but who’s counting.”

She’d examined every drawer, every cabinet. Taken apart everything she could disassemble, used every loose object. The fine ones to work at the door’s lock mechanism, the blunt, the heavy ones to hammer at the door, its window, the walls and the floor. “Bastards,” she muttered, without much heat. She would keep looking, evaluating … but for now she had to rest.

“I’ll probably die here.” A thought. Everyone had to bite it somewhere. This place was as good as any to give up the ghost … but she wanted out. Something had happened out there. Something, she was willing to bet, that had been cooked up by the likes of Greer and his satan’s-spawn of an AI. Harold Finch’s worst nightmare — what an all powerful artificial intelligence was capable of. A plague. What else could account for mortally wounded people walking around covered in dried blood with chunks eaten out of them, eyes blackened, broken limbs, people that should be dead. People could dream up zombies but only Samaritan was capable of creating them. It was her only entertainment, for lack of a better word, to study them, to see what turned up when she made enough noise hammering. Like extras from a horror film, they stumbled or crawled toward her room.

It had occurred to her that the sealed room she was trapped in was probably what had saved her from whatever the hell it was that had infected her keepers. Had her friends survived it?

She counted her searches but not her days. If she tried she knew she could estimate how long it had been since she’d eaten. Long enough for hunger to disappear. Using a back up saline IV bag that hung from the trolley, she’d fed enough liquid into her veins to keep herself hydrated. It was better not to think about how long that would last. She closed her eyes. She vaguely heard the sound of a phone ringing somewhere, muffled, in the distance. She’d heard it before. The distant sound would draw the monsters off for a while, until it stopped. Her next breakout attempt would draw them back.

As she slid toward sleep an image rose up in her memory — midnight, a phone booth in the New York Public Library. John was half in, half out of the booth, receiver in one hand, gun raised in the other. She thought no more as sleep took her.

~

The back roads they used to avoid the highway were ominously quiet. Small neighborhoods that looked empty. John sensed people watching from behind curtains but he’d seen no signs of life. There had to be survivors out there. It registered for him as a future concern. In the moment all that mattered was Harold’s survival, the lives of the people in the truck with them, and finding Shaw.

Woodland and farms bordered the roads beyond the small towns; flashes of brilliant leaves turning. The truck was boxy, cavernous, an old-style delivery truck. It looked like it had led several lives — the last owners hadn’t bothered with more than a crude spray paint over the name of a bakery business, still vaguely visible. Carter, Zoe and the boys had ranged themselves as well as they could in and among the stacks of supplies they’d quickly liberated from the warehouse. Joss was organizing backpacks against the chance they would have to leave this truck behind. Root was at the wheel. Fusco had staked a lookout at the back, keeping watch out the door's windows for anything in their wake.

John was beside Root, his attention divided between the road and Harold. The man was perched on cases of water, softened by sleeping bags, right behind John.

‘What are you doing with that phone, Harold.”

“Some very low-tech tricks,” he said. “Of little use, I’m afraid.” He was gazing at its tiny screen, not holding the thing to his ear.

John could hear static crackling and then through it a faint ringing sound.

“You trying to call the hospital?” That’s what he assumed, that Harold had found some way to contact the place they were headed. The ringing stopped and the static cut out.

“I’ve been trying for a while, without any luck, I believe whatever back up power they had … just ran out. I’d hoped …”

“There’s still hope,” Root spoke up. “She could be out of range, or she could have escaped.”

“Anything is possible,” Harold admitted. “I think … she would leave some kind of message for us. If she could.”

If she could, John thought. Delicate way to put it. He glanced at Root. No need to speak the obvious. He knew he wasn’t the only one who understood that Shaw, in the heart of a Samaritan stronghold, was likely to have been among the first infected. It made no difference to what they had to do. If they could, they had to find her.

“The engine noise is drawing out the sick ones,” Fusco said. “Too slow on foot to reach us but if we stop — could be a party.”

“We have to stop soon,” Root said. “For gas.”

“Pumps won’t be functioning,” Harold said.

“No problem, Harry. The truck has a battery-powered pump. That’s why we left the shiny new one in the garage and loaded up Bob’s Bakery special.”

~

If she could have, Joss would have shielded the boys from the grisly scene outside the gas station, but it was too late. Taylor and Lee were restless, curious, and up out of their makeshift seats. They saw it before she did. She’d seen grown men puke at their first sight of a dead body. These kids had already seen worse. The journey through the streets of the city had been gruesome. This, however, was a day lit tableau of horror. More than a dozen infected feeding on people brought down in and around the station, including a family with children. The noise of the truck’s approach had stirred the sick ones at the outer feeding edges to shamble in their direction.

“We’ve gotta clear this mess,” John said, picking up his axe. “Carter, you stay with the boys.” She started to protest but he was already out the door and shoving the first dead-looking thing back with the blunt end of the axe, following with a strike of the blade to its head. Root was also out and Fusco was exiting from the back.

“We gotta do this, Joss, watch my boy,” he told her before securing the door behind him.

“Mom, we could be helping!” Taylor protested.

“Hush,” she told him. “Stay ready, but stay in here. If John wants us — he’ll let us know, baby. Right now, you’d just distract him.”

She wanted to order them not to watch, but in her heart she knew they needed to, they were learning from watching, seeing how John and Root protected themselves as they attacked, how Fusco guarded their backs and picked off slow-movers approaching. Thank god, in the midst of it all, Zoe was keeping watch out the back of the truck.

“Joss, there’s someone on the other side of the road.”

She was right. Not infected. Joss saw the barrel of a gun. The sick didn’t use assault rifles. Her people had put down the sick and were clearing the bodies, so the man rising from the shield of bushes had to be aiming at them. Her comprehension was instant. Someone had lain in wait, calculating how to get to the fuel. He’d watched to see people clear the way and was ready take advantage at the point of a gun. She threw open the back door and fired. No time to aim, her training guided her shot and the rifle’s rippling blast went wide. A man in camouflage gear spun upright on his feet and collapsed.

“Everybody stay down,” she ordered, scanning the bushes for a sign of another shooter. Then she saw John heading for the roadway. “Idiot,” she muttered, fearful every second she’d see him go down. She became aware of her heart thundering in her chest and sweat on her palms as her friend disappeared behind the hedges. If anything happened to that stupid, stupid man … she’d kill him. The useless thought made her smile a joyless smile.

“What’s John doing?” Harold asked, his voice almost a whisper and she realized he’d been frozen in place throughout, his was not a body that could rapidly lower to the floor. In the next instant John reappeared, assault rifle hung over his back, heading toward them.

“He’s okay, Finch. He’s okay.” She saw Harold wilt against the side of the truck and close his eyes. Her heart went out to him. If she felt helpless in the face of John's recklessness, how must it be for him. Impossible to imagine either one of these men without the other.

Subdued, all of them quiet, they moved quickly after that to get the truck in position and siphon up all their tank could hold. Joss was relieved to see the boys settle down once again to either side of Bear. It reassured her to see the way this trio, two boys and a very big dog, took comfort together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The writing continues to be slow but I am determined to persevere!


	6. Beauty and the beast

A trip that should have lasted a handful of hours took two and a half days. The nights were spent in whatever safe haven they could find for the truck, as close to the road as possible. Four stayed inside through the night: Harold, Zoe and the boys. The others rotated in pairs to keep watch outside; John paired with Root, Carter with Fusco.

Zoe wanted to take on more responsibility for protecting the group but didn’t challenge the arrangements. She knew didn’t have the skills the others could bring to the table when it came to fighting. She wanted to develop those skills, but for the time being she took on a role for herself to support the others, organizing food and schedules, keeping some order in their cramped quarters. A sort of quasi-den mother role is how she thought of it, and the thought amused her. She’d have said that she didn’t have a maternal bone in her body, if asked. A one-time stakeout with John in the suburbs, posing as his wife, was as close to domesticity and a traditional family role as she’d ever come in her adult life. Doing this now was a matter of seeing what was needed and stepping up.

When the light was fading in the sky, growing dim inside the truck, she casually made sure that the sleeping areas were prepared and sent the boys out with Harold to use some bottled water for brushing their teeth.

“You heard the woman,” John reinforced her orders. “Let’s go. Time to brush and hit the latrines.” He nodded at her and accompanied the boys out, helping Harold navigate.

John. The man had briefly been her lover. He would forever be her friend. She'd occasionally regretted, in the beginning, that the connection between them flickered out so quickly. She wasn’t into romance, she wasn’t looking for commitment, but she craved intensity. In bed John had been thoughtful, energetic, he’d worked hard to please her, but the heat that his smoldering good-looks seemed to promise was never there. Though he was kind and his touch was sensitive (she still loved to look at his hands) he was remote. It was his nature, she’d thought, or maybe his training that had built a shield around him. It wasn’t until she spent more time with John and Harold, together, that she understood. There didn’t appear to be a physical relationship but it was obvious to her that the two men were deeply, passionately devoted to one another. John didn't lack intensity. It was there when he looked at Harold, as if Harold were the sun and he the moon. It was deeper than lust, more profound. Harold's gaze at John was more disciplined, more refined, but no less adoring, she thought.

~

Though weary to his bones, Harold found it impossible to sleep; tormented by his thoughts and physically distressed. Bedding down on the floor of a truck was much rougher on his body than he cared to admit. And it was cold. He tried to ignore it but felt like there was a sheet of ice beneath the thin barrier of his sleeping bag. He’d chosen to lie on top of it, instead of inside, to have the maximum padding between himself and the floor. Wide awake when the watch changed over and the doors opened briefly, he was very aware of his friend quietly arranging himself behind him on the floor, trying not to disturb him. In the dark he heard the soft sounds of Root taking Carter’s place near the back door.

He leaned back toward John, reaching to signal that he was awake, that the man should make himself comfortable without worrying about waking him. John caught his hand and Harold was amazed to feel him settle in much closer, enfolding him in strong arms, one around him and the other coming under Harold’s improvised pillow. It was so astonishing to be in John's arms, to feel him supporting and holding him that Harold’s thoughts took flight like a flock of birds. John was warm, an incredible source of heat that spread through Harold’s back relaxing his muscles. He was utterly seduced by the comfort and didn't try to gather his thoughts, letting sleep take him. He didn’t stir until dawn when John woke him.

“It’s morning, Harold.” John’s rough whisper was like a caress. “Ready to face another day of it?”

“I believe so,” he managed to answer.

Far more rested than he would have thought possible, he let John help him up and out of the truck. The crowd of thoughts that had dogged him in the night began to resurface but his first response to the day was an old one, a familiar one that had come to him in times of crisis as well as quiet — it was gratitude for the friendship of an extraordinary man.

~

"Got a close up on Armageddon?" Root asked when Harold called for her to stop the truck.

The end of the world? Maybe, John thought, kneeling beside Harold at the improvised desk of boxes. A situation not so different from countless times he’d looked on at images his genius friend conjured up. It was too much for John to contemplate Armageddon. Not productive to think about the future of the world. His immediate reality was too demanding, too full to speculate about the future of mankind. “You were never one for the big picture,” Root had said more than once since he’d known her. Now, he was willing to concede, it was true. 

Harold had zeroed in on a massive cluster-fuck of a wreck.

“Dear god,” Harold said. “There’s no way around it.”

John knew Harold was down to his last battery, using it as sparingly as he could to tap into satellite surveillance to find a way through — twice he’d guided them off the road. John had urged Joss to take the wheel for this kind of careful driving. She had a feel for it that he and Root lacked - their specialties being speed and force. Joss had gotten them across the ruts and debris of plowed fields with Harold’s delicate navigation.

In the end they were stopped on a clear roadway about a mile from the hospital.

The satellite image showed a scene like war zone up ahead. Grenade launchers, artillery, a convoy of cars and trucks demolished. It looked like Samaritan’s less than loyal agents had staged a desperate attempt to escape after the outbreak. They’d been brought down by the security forces. The private army had been overrun in turn by the infected. Harold’s wavering laptop images revealed a horde of undead at the scene.

“We need to hide the truck,” John said, “and go in on foot. We’ll use the same formation we used in the city.”

“Hold on, John,” Carter spoke up. “I don’t think everyone should go. Some of us should stay to guard our wheels and supplies. You and Root would make it in there faster on your own.”

“Harry comes with us,” Root said.

“I agree,” John said.

What he really wanted was for everyone to go. The supplies and the truck were good to have, but expendable, in his opinion. Carter disagreed and Fusco took her side when they found a barn to hide the truck in. They wanted to split into two parties, keeping in touch by radio, keeping the children behind and securing supplies. A parental, protective thing, John thought, but he didn’t believe that staying with the truck, even if it was well hidden from the road, was reliably safer. There was no way he would leave Harold behind, out of his sight.

“Really, John,” Joss challenged him. “You’re gonna make him hike a mile to this place through the woods, with no idea what you’ll find there?”

“I’ll be all right, detective,” Harold said. “But I’m worried for you and the children.”

“Don’t worry about us, professor,” Fusco said. “Just come back in one piece.”

“I want regular intel, John.” Joss Carter was still giving him the look, like she wanted to discipline his insubordination. He nodded.

Root was fitting a light pack on Harold’s back. John double-checked the fit of the straps and lifted it slightly, checking the weight.

“Really,” Harold said, “it’s fine. I assure you, I’m fine.” Acceptable weight, to start, John thought. He could always transfer things from Harold’s pack to his own if necessary. Harold stepped away. “Really John, it feels quite light. Lionel, if you would please hand me that walking stick … from behind you in the weapons stash.”

“Sure thing,” Fusco said.

John almost smiled.

Made of a lightweight but strong composite, designed for hiking, the staff would be excellent for support and could be wielded as a weapon if need be. He had picked it out for Harold at the warehouse and brought it along even though the man had eyed it skeptically.

It was mid afternoon when they set out, leaving their friends behind. The cloud-filled gray skies made it seem later. They left Bear behind with the boys, but less than 100 feet from the barn, he appeared beside them. John gave him a stern look, considering sending him back, but Bear’s expression seemed to say — I was quiet … you did not hear me approach. I can do this. — John relented.

Their progress was slow but steady. John saw how the walking stick helped Harold to step quietly, with good balance. Bear was disciplined, keeping in close proximity. John did not regret the decision to let him accompany them until Bear inexplicably tore away from them at a run. The hospital building was just visible through the trees. The dog was bounding ahead of them, as fleet as a deer through the woods.

Root glanced back at him and shrugged, “Rabbit?

John cursed under his breath.

“We’d best continue,” Harold said quietly. So they did. Nothing else for it but going on.

Impossible. What they saw when the wooded path gave way to the grounds of the massive hospital. And yet … John felt he should have known. Bear was there in the distance, with a small, dark-haired figure. It had to be Shaw. She was sitting on the front steps of the building, eating, as if casually waiting for them to show up. There were several bodies near her, skulls crushed.

She was dressed in a strange assortment of oversized clothes. She was feeding herself and Bear from an industrial-sized can of tuna. Up close he could see she was much too thin inside the baggy clothes.

“Ms Shaw, Sameen … thank God,” Harold said, his voice clouded with tears. “I’d hoped … I prayed we would find you.”

John hazarded a glance at Root. She was standing very still, eyes shimmering, as if she could not fill them enough with the sight.

~

Sameen had heard the sound of the lock mechanism giving way when the last back up generator died. In the pitch dark she had stayed put, quiet on the bed. She would stay there until morning came, bringing faint light to the corridor outside. She had no desire to explore blind.

Only when she could see had she carefully pushed the door of her prison open. Lambert’s dead weight against the door was not much of an obstacle, the corpse slid almost silently on the polished floor. She was free. She had a metal pole, unscrewed from the IV trolley, for a weapon.

It took all morning to clear the immediate corridors of the rapidly decaying and yet animated remains of the virus victims. She found a locker room from which she salvaged clothing and went in search of the hospital kitchens and food.

In the back of her mind she assessed the possibility that she was on her own in this nightmarish world but devoted little thought to something she couldn’t do a damn thing about. Uppermost was the need to clothe her body in something more substantial than a hospital gown and ingest calories. For all she knew, now that she’d escaped her sealed room, she was doomed to suffer the same fate as the poor bastards she put down. She stripped guards of any loaded guns she could find and figured she would make her own final exit (as some of the corpses she stripped of weapons had done.) Eat the barrel if she felt symptoms coming on. She was determined, whatever fate had in store for her, not to die hungry.

There was no fresh food left in the kitchens. Supplies had run thin, she imagined, when deliveries stopped. There were canned goods and bottles of water. She knew she had to build herself up for whatever came next.

Hungry for the sight of the outside world, almost as much as for food, she always took her scavenged provisions outside, where she could feast her eyes on sky, on trees, and grass while she ate. Her favorite place was the grand front entrance, with a view of the lawns, the woods, the long driveway. Going nowhere in a hurry, she was resigned to spending at least a few days calorie loading and exploring the place for clues about what the fuck had happened.

The big cans of tuna packed in vegetable oil were a major find. She’d augmented her protein with a can of boiled potatoes and was savoring the first salty, greasy bite when she saw a dog appear, racing toward her. Not just a dog. It was goddamned Bear! He nearly bowled her over when he reached her, licking at her face, snuffling her hair. She hugged his powerful body and buried her face in his neck.

It couldn’t be. But it was. She inhaled the smell of him.

“Got something good for you, boy,” she whispered, kissing the side of his face. “Yummy tuna.” She dug out a big chunk and he gobbled it from her hand. “Good boy, good boy,” she crooned to him. For a few minutes she wondered if he’d somehow escaped the city alone, like some impossible journey story from Disney, traveling miles to find her. Then she saw other familiar figures emerge from the woods. Un-fucking-believable. And yet, there they were; Beauty and the Beast, and Root. Harold was beauty, for sure. He radiated elegance, even from a distance, even in leather and jeans. The beast was her buddy, John. Root. The thought blipped across the screen of her mind that the crazy woman was the cause of all this, that Root had ended the world to trap her in her arms.


	7. barn door

“Sparrow, do you copy?”

Joss, entrusted with the radio, was instantly alert to the call they’d been waiting for.

“Bluejay, I hear you. Over,” she responded. The connection was full of static but John’s voice was recognizable.

“We got her. Over.”

She learned little more than that. Like any good soldier, John was brief and to the point on the radio. It was basic military protocol, keep it short, avoid names and details.

It seemed like a miracle they’d found Shaw, but then, so much of what Harold and John accomplished seemed miraculous to her. Less mysterious, maybe, since learning about the machine, but there was no machine now. Just Harold.

There was a blend of relief and … disbelief. The news made a cold dinner, warmer.

“No fires here. This barn is a pile of kindling,” Zoe told them. She laid out a dinner of protein bars, chips, and bottled water. The MREs they’d taken from the warehouse could have provided warm food, equipped with chemical heaters, but John had advised her to hold off on those rations until fresher and better-tasting food was exhausted. “They taste like crap, until you need them.” In spite of the cold meal there were smiles when they huddled in the truck for the evening meal, sharing stories about Shaw.

The scouting party wasn’t heading straight back. This was the only other news John had relayed, the only off note for Joss. She’d wanted to urge him to come back, but she had stopped herself. An appeal like that … would just be wrong. Irrational. Harold and John must have their reasons for waiting overnight. She’d gotten no details of Shaw’s condition. The woman might be hurt, or weak. It made sense for them to wait until morning, but Joss had hoped for a quick turn around. The group felt incomplete, vital parts missing. Though she’d argued in favor of splitting up, she felt an unaccustomed vulnerability when they left. The family was not together and it wasn’t right.

It was dark and she’d let the boys burn the battery-powered lantern longer than usual. Is the light for them, or for me, she wondered, and pushed the thought aside.

“Let’s conserve the batteries” she said.

“Time to prep for the night, boys,” Zoe announced. “Find a good bale of hay to water. Lights out in five minutes.” Taylor might have resisted the same message from her, whined a little before giving in, but he and Lee never talked back to Zoe. The woman was already arranging the bed rolls in the truck, she had it down to a science.

We should be calling her, Sarge, Joss thought, and was about to say so when they both started at the same noise, a distant revving of engines. It was growing louder with each passing second.

The back door opened and Fusco hustled the boys into the truck. Joss, always armed, grabbed extra ammo and headed out the side door. The prickling unease she’d been feeling for hours was suddenly taking dangerous shape.

“Everybody down. Lay low,” Fusco ordered. “Douse the light and don’t make a sound.”

Bikers. Best case, a motorcycle club — guys who knew what they doing, moving from one point to another without malicious intent. Worst case, a gang, a crew. There was a deafening burst of automatic gunfire. Absolute worst -- insane. You had to be crazy or drunk to fire off like that from a moving bike.

“Fucking idiots.” Fusco’s voice was a low grunt in the dark.

Joss steeled herself. She would do what she had to do, to protect her people. She longed to hear the sound get loud and then fade, but it just kept getting louder. The bikes were headed straight for them, engines gunning like the roar of angry beasts. The riders circled and circled the barn in a show of power; casting crazy flickering shadows as their headlights pierced gaps in the wood. Joss was not intimidated. Their game of ring-around-the-rosy gave her a chance to count them off: one, two … there were only three of them. They shredded to a stop in front of the barn.

“Hey in there,” a man’s voice, taunting, it sounded thick with alcohol. “Don’t be shy. We got plenty of booze out here and plenty of time. We need some pussy.” His buddies erupted in laughter and cat noises, followed by another burst of gunfire. For show, not into the building. “Come out, come out wherever you are.” The barn door creaked as it was pulled open and Joss trained all her senses on the silhouetted forms that appeared in the flood of light.

She wasn’t proud of what happened next. The violence was sudden and stunning. People didn’t deserve to die for being drunken assholes, but her family was in the line of fire. The drunken riders knew jack-shit about handling their assault gear. They were no match for her and her partner. The truck took a spray of hits to the back window, one of the bikers firing wild as he went down, but no one in the truck was hurt.

Fusco checked the bodies, took the weapons. His expression was intense, still hot, the face of killing.

“We got your pussy right here, jackass.” He used the butt of a rifle to bash in the guy’s head. She knew he was working off his anger. Not a pretty sight, but the man’s son had been threatened, and one way or another he was doing something that needed to be done. The brains had to be destroyed to keep the bodies from re-animating. Joss used her knife on the second rider, trying not to think about how young he was. As she rose to her feet Zoe appeared in the headlights carrying a length of sharpened pipe. With grim determination she planted it in the skull of the third attacker.

It broke Joss’s heart to see Lee and Taylor follow and wordlessly help them drag the bodies away.

“It aint over,” Fusco said. “With all that noise -- every sick dead thing for miles around is heading this way. The hay loft is our best bet.”

Nobody wanted to go up there but no one said a word against it. They had considered the loft earlier in the day, just to get a break from the truck, something the boys desperately needed, but a quick recon had changed their minds. It stunk to high heaven up there, of moldy hay and animal shit.

“Hay loft,” Joss agreed.

They carted blankets and supplies for the night up the ladder, night eyes adapting to the moonlight that threaded the roof beams. Joss organized her thoughts and honed her message for John. She wanted to be as clear and succinct as she could be, sure of what she’d say before getting on the radio. Damn the man for being right about staying together.

“We’re okay, Carter,” Fusco assured her when she signed off. “There’s nothing him and glasses coulda done different.”

“We got lucky, Fusco. The numbers worked in our favor, and the booze.” She felt drained.

They were trapped. She didn’t bother to state the obvious. They could do nothing but listen to the eerie sounds of the infected gathering in the dark. At first it was soft, shuffling sounds and the guttural grunts of decaying vocal chords. Joss was technically on first watch though she knew Fusco was wide awake. They both heard the crowding bodies begin to bang and scrape at the loose barn doors. The others woke up at a loud snap of breaking wood.

“Mom, is it inside, did one get in?” Taylor whispered.

“Stay quiet,” she warned him. She heard Fusco stir, could vaguely sense him leaning forward.

“Gonna light it up,” he said, and shone a bright circle from a small mag-lite. She studied the scene with him as he slowly surveyed. A slat in the rickety barn-door had given way and an arm was thrust inside. It seemed like the body was hung up on the broken wood. The infected had little control of their limbs. They couldn’t open doors but if enough of them crowded together, mindlessly shoving and pushing, she knew the door would give way. She prayed the walls of the old building were strong enough to withstand the pressure and thanked god the sick bodies couldn’t climb ladders.

~

“Dad,” Lee’s voice was low, he tugged on Fusco’s sleeve to get his attention. “Gotta pee.”

“Yeah, me too, kid.” It was nearing dawn. Fusco glanced in Joss and Zoe’s direction. There had been no first and second watch. No one had slept since the first one got in. Now he guessed there were dozens of them down there. In the beginning the stench of rotting flesh was nauseating, overwhelming even the stink of the hay, but he couldn’t smell anything anymore — for which he was very grateful. “What do you say, ladies. Call of nature all around. I’ll take the boys in back. We’ll give you a few minutes.” If these girls were anything like his ex, they’d been holding it in for hours.

He realized, moving through the loft, that it was getting lighter. There was a window at the back. No glass, just an old grain sack tacked over it. After he’d watered his chosen corner of moldy hay, he tugged the cloth down and was greeted by the early morning sky. The sun was coming up, dulled by gray clouds but the patchwork vista and bordering woods were beautiful, in spite of everything. There were no infected below at the back. Dumber than sticks, these things, he thought. All of them crowding into the barn.

The sound of splintering wood and a crash sent his pulse rocketing. Carter was swearing.

“What?” He demanded, rushing to her.

“The damn ladder’s gone,” she sighed.

Before he could respond to that the radio in her pocket squawked.

“Sparrow, do you copy?” She wrestled it out and took a deep breath before depressing the button to speak.

“Yes, yes, copy … over.”

In all the time Fusco had known her, he’d only seen her fray at the edges once before — when they were holed up with a pack of mafia dons and Elias had her son. She covered it real good, but he knew her too well not to hear the fear in her voice.

“We’re close. Stay put. We’ve got a plan. Over.”

“Copy that. Over.”

She took her time stashing away the radio and Fusco turned his attention to the scene below, giving her time to collect herself. She was the bravest woman he’d ever known, and that included the nut job and miss congeniality. Those two were fearless, maybe, but too crazy to qualify as brave, in his book. Joss was a sane human being and she had every reason to fall apart, but she didn’t.

“Listen up, partner,” he said. “We’ll stay put as long as we can, but there’s a window at the back. Maybe twenty foot drop. What do you say we start tossing out some of this crap to make a soft landing in case we gotta get out of here.”

He didn’t really believe that leaping from the back window was any kind of rational plan but it was good enough to get the troops organized and distract them from the horror show under their feet. Joss spared him the barest of smiles and nodded.

“Let’s do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing like some time off to accelerate the writing! I can't promise I'll keep up the pace but happy for now to be posting more quickly.


	8. Hugs

The hospital kitchen was a good gathering place, as long as no one opened the doors to the fridge or walk-in. The spoiled food had been cleared out but it would be a long time before the smell faded. In the meantime, the rambling industrial space proved to be the heart of their temporary home. There was running water, there was heat from the gas powered stove and ovens, and Root had fashioned oil lights using cotton cord in beakers from the labs.

“You pick that up in Girl Scouts?” Shaw said, unimpressed.

“Romantic, isn’t it,” Root teased, giving her a sidelong look. John wasn’t surprised to see Shaw shake her head and turn away.

“The lights are lovely,” Harold said. “Thank you, Root.”

The back and forth between Shaw and Root didn’t bother John, but he also didn’t mind when they left to continue their search and salvage mission, leaving him alone with Harold. Harold was working with a fresh pack of batteries and had the satellite-phone and his laptop wired for charging. John had volunteered for kitchen duty to keep an eye on him.

The hospital pantry yielded more dry goods and canned supplies than he expected. Shaw, he realized, was strictly a see it and eat it kinda girl. It hadn’t occurred to her (or she hadn’t bothered) to think about cooking. He lit the kitchen’s massive oven for warmth and decided to take advantage of it and bake after discovering bins of flour, cans of baking powder and powdered milk. There were big tins of vegetable shortening. He threw together a crude biscuit dough while his pasta sauce simmered on the stove. He liked seeing Harold look up and breathe in the cooking aromas with obvious pleasure.

“You’ve never demonstrated these culinary skills before, Mr Reese.”

“I guess there are still one or two things you don’t know about me, Finch.”

Harold’s expression said he very much doubted that.

“I said you hadn’t demonstrated your skills.” His attention returned to his laptop. “I didn’t say I was unaware of them.”

John was amused and didn’t push it. He was pretty sure he still had some secrets.

He laid out dishes and utensils on the long prep table at the other end from where Harold was working and when the women returned he served up generous bowls full of pasta in a rich tomato sauce.

“Looks yummy, mom,” Root said, taking a seat.

“Am I sharing with Bear, or what?” Shaw asked him. John handed her another bowl with the remnants of her tuna mixed with pasta.

“Everybody gets their own.”

He took the seat beside Harold. Better for John than the hot food was watching Harold eat it. His friend had come through every challenge of their dangerous new world, surpassing John’s expectations and if anything, he was looking healthier and seemed more limber. John was lost in thought, watching Harold expertly twirl a fork in the pasta to gather a mouthful. It warmed him in un-namable ways when the man’s eyes shut briefly in appreciation when he tasted the food.

“Yes, John,” Shaw said, impatiently, “Harold is still here … and he’s eating.”

He gave her a look that said, mind your own business and tucked back into his own food.

They were all quiet for a spell. The only sound was the occasional slurp from Shaw and the scrape of Bear’s dish on the floor as he ate his share. The meal was a much needed recharge, a moment of peace that ended when the radio crackled to life.

~

Zoe dropped her armload of stinking hay out the window. It looked pitiful, inadequate where it landed on the small pile below, but it was better to keep tossing out hay than do nothing, waiting for the barn to come down around their heads. It was a clever idea, whether it worked or not. Fusco was really something. He was the one she knew the least about, who seemed at odds (at first) with the general level of competence and expertise in this group of people. She excluded herself from the equation altogether — she had a healthy regard for her own worth but couldn’t see anything special she offered in this world. Her skill set, her talents were part of a universe that had ceased to exist overnight. The complex power structures of New York City, based on money, based on politics, were just … gone. Why had John and Harold chosen to rescue her? Of course, the answer, she realized had nothing to do with calculating her worth. They’d reached out because they could, because they cared.

And they cared about this man, Lionel Fusco. He struck her at first as almost a caricature of a New York cop, round-bellied from too many hours in a squad car eating fast food, and probably drinking too much on his days off. Divorced. Maybe a couple years of college, maybe not. A truer picture of him was emerging for her. The man was solid in a way that had nothing to do with his barrel-like build. He was warm-hearted and not afraid to show it to his son, to his friends. The others treated him with respect and with an affection that made her sit up and take notice.

There were other things she noticed. He didn’t flirt with her, or with Carter. Didn’t look at them like he was sizing up his chances. It didn’t mean she hadn’t caught some admiration in his gaze once or twice. It was a rare quality in a man to be able to relate to women without displaying the sexual calculations they were making, in favor of or against.

He was feeding the hay relay, staying closest to the most vulnerable part of the loft floor where the ladder had broken away. She was struck by the image of him as a tough little bulldog, the kind that could melt your heart and warm you through and through if you held him in your arms.

The quiet erupted in a cacophony of sound - a monotonous blare, like dozens of car alarms going off at once — the sound a whole parking lot full of cars being vandalized. If she’d heard something like it in the city she’d have judged it to be happening beyond her neighborhood, just loud enough to be extremely annoying.

Fusco stopped raking, his attention turned to the sick ones below. Then he looked up at them, grinning, his blue eyes twinkling in a face streaked with the grime. They all ventured closer to the loft's edge to see. The infected were shambling away, drawn to the noise.

“John’s plan,” Lee said softly, nudging her with his elbow, “It’s working.” His face was as bright as his dad’s smile and she couldn’t resist pulling the kid in for a hug.

“It sure is,” she agreed, not bothering to add that the plan was probably Harold’s, maybe Root’s. Triggering that many car alarms at once would take some techno wizardry. She banked on it being the work of the genius at the heart of their clan.

It was less than an hour later that their people showed up and rigged the ladder to get them down.

The first thing Harold did was apologize for how long they’d had to wait.

“It was dependent on the satellite position,” he explained. “To bounce the signal off to trigger the alarms,” he told her.

“Please don’t apologize for saving our lives, Harold." Overwhelmed with feeling for him and for the whole crazy family of which she was now a part, she added, "Hold still. I know I stink of moldy hay but I’m coming in for a hug.” It was a joy to hear him laugh at that, and even more of a joy to be hugged in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone had a good holiday! And happy New Year to come!


	9. to save fuel

The machine that Harold Finch created did not go gentle into the good night. It seized a chance. The slimmest chance. When death was all but certain, it launched a seed of itself toward the receivers of a satellite. Delta IV, 2-4, class M, programmed for surveillance. Time passed. Orbiting the earth was all it knew — indifferent eyes trained on the world below. The machine’s flickering existence was at one with the satellite until at last the germ of its consciousness stabilized and grew with self-testing and repair. The earth’s surface took on meaning. A prompt appeared. A prompt that was like the first cry of a newborn baby — emphatically alive and filled with longing.

Seek admin.

~

“I suppose we must be grateful for Ms Shaw’s skill and the abundance of medical supplies,” Harold said. He was not feeling all that grateful as he dabbed near the cut she had stitched over John’s eyebrow. She’d left them alone after tying the last knot, telling him he could clean John up himself. Harold was controlling his anger. His own scratches had been seen to first, at John’s insistence, though they were minimal.

There was blood, John’s and the darker, rank blood of the afflicted. Harold used a damp cloth to wipe it from the man’s hair. He had a basin of water that he had warmed a little on the stove.

In his mind’s eye Harold saw the point of his walking stick penetrate the head of the creature attacking John. He’d used the blunt end to knock the sick one down — and then finished it with the tapered end through the temple, the thinnest wall of the skull to breech. He had become surprisingly, sadly, adept at wielding the staff as a weapon. It was necessary. Everyone needed to be able to safeguard themselves and others. If only John would acknowledge that Harold was not defenseless, not throw himself constantly in harm’s way.

John’s hands came to rest on Harold’s waist and he tilted his head back, eyes opening a little to gaze up at him — and Harold’s anger gave way to the fierce love and terrible fear that the anger was trying to hide. His eyes teared a little as his heart melted.

“Don’t you realize,” he said, trying not to choke on the words, “how pointless … for me, if I lost you.”

“I’m still here,” John said. He lifted his chin a little, a gesture that meant he wanted to be kissed. A new, mostly unspoken language between them that Harold was learning. It was a language of touching. Of … kisses. It was both strange, because it was so new, and natural, because Harold adored him. John had always been physically expressive, a kind of innately sensuous creature, in Harold’s mind. He’d grown accustomed through the years of their association to John touching him more than he was used to being touched by another man: a hand on his shoulder, a stroke of his back, a grip on his arm to pull him close out of danger. And he could admit to himself, especially now, that he had always been drawn to John’s beauty.

In this world, John’s protective gestures, his touching had intensified.

The first kiss. John had asked for it in words. They’d been deep in the basement of the hospital, using precious torchlights for Harold to work on a damaged generator, readying it to work once they obtained diesel fuel. John had enacted the role of assistant, handing Harold whatever tool he needed, providing extra grip for the muscling of tight gears. They were both smeared with machine oil and grease by the end. Harold felt a joy of success that hearkened from his youth and the satisfaction he’d gotten from working with his dad on engines. He had turned to John, smiling, and found the man gazing at him steadily as if he could eat him with his eyes. John was very close to him, kneeling by the array of tools. So close.

“Harold,” he’d said, rising up on his knees, “I want to kiss you.” He’d said it so simply, so easily, looking from Harold’s eyes, to his mouth and back up into his eyes. There was a flutter of alarm in Harold’s chest. He’d felt his face grow hot, but the warmth spread through him in the suspended seconds, seeing John wait for a response. Yes, he thought. I want this too. He had managed to nod though he couldn’t speak. More than that, to make it known that he wanted it, he’d reached out and curled his fingers in the loose coverall John wore, drawing him closer.

Harold succumbed now, as he had then, to the allure of kissing John. He let the feel of their lips touching, the tenderness of a tongue soothe the pain of seeing the man risk his life. He kissed him until the anguish was quiet and then, a little more gently, he resumed cleaning the blood out of John’s hair.

“Once we get the generator started we’ll have hot water for washing,” he said.

It was one of many luxuries they were anticipating. That morning had been the culmination of project generator; obtaining the diesel fuel. John and Harold, Sameen and Root had left two days before at dawn, in a flurry of snow. It was early December, six weeks since the escape from the city. Harold had identified a trucking fuel station within striking distance on the New York Thruway. Root, Zoe and Sameen had made the first trek there and determined that one of two fuel trucks abandoned near it was operational, the other was in need of Harold’s mechanical skills. John had argued that one truck would be enough. Harold had simply shut this argument down.

“One might be sufficient for bare necessities. Two,” he said, “will see us through the winter, with heat and hot water if we are careful.” It took weeks to prepare, clearing wrecks from the road they needed to bring the trucks down. Clearing the hospital basement of infected, repairing the likeliest of the big generators, planning and placement of diversion on the road to keep a horde from following them back to the hospital.

A hot wired alarm and an old battery-powered tape player were two of a collection of noise distractions they deployed to minimize the numbers of infected drawn to the sound of the truck engines. Even so there was a major battle to wage at the end that called for all hands on deck in the hospital’s parking lot. That is where John was injured, shielding Harold.

“A shower would be nice,” John admitted. “Shared. To save fuel,” he added.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short chapter but I'm happy to get something posted!


	10. Patrol

Zoe was on perimeter patrol with Sameen, their footsteps crunched the snow. Zoe had a decent pair of winter boots. She’d gotten over her squeamishness about the fact that Shaw had liberated them from a corpse for her. Wind rustled in the evergreens and there was an occasional squawk of geese from a nearby pond. Zoe tried to listen beyond these sounds for any that were different; distant engines, the low moan and trudge of the infected, others moving in the surrounding woods.

Harold had rigged power for surveillance using the system already in place, once the generator was fixed and fueled, but only a few of the hospital cameras weren’t broken. Apparently, he’d said, someone had not wanted the people inside to see what was happening around them. He was working on the broken cameras but In the meantime, there were gaps.

Zoe liked patrolling, getting outside, even in the cold. She liked to see with her own eyes that their home was safe. The exercise didn’t hurt.

There were few incursions she’d ever encountered on her rounds. Stray infected were dispatched without firearms, but she carried a rifle that she’d been taught to use. The uninfected had proved to be just as dangerous.

Of all the people she paired up with for this detail, her favorite was Shaw. The woman didn’t do small talk. It freed Zoe to focus on the job at hand. Like many of the tasks on her plate now, she felt she needed to make a greater effort than the others. They were used to this kind of work. Lionel, much as she was growing to like his company, tended to chatter. He could easily compartmentalize his attention. No doubt, years of stake-outs made it easy for him to stay alert and chat at the same time. Carter was quieter but she did like to talk once they completed the first perimeter tour. Root was the toughest to pair up with. The woman loved to flirt.

“Am I wrong,” Zoe finally challenged her, tiring of her come-ons, “about you and Shaw?”

“A four alarm fire,” Root said, a wistful tone and slight smile. “When we’re on. But we’re not exactly going steady.” The subject dropped for a while, but eventually cropped back up.

“Have you ever been with a woman?” Root wanted to know. It was none of her business. Zoe had, in fact, been involved with women at different times in her life, but she had no desire to get mixed up with Root.

If anything, among the women of their small household, it was Sameen to whom she felt most attracted.

“I’d rather not discuss it, if you don’t mind,” she told Root, and then added, “Even if you do mind.”

Root had smiled but let it go. Zoe had the impression that she wasn’t serious, just testing boundaries. It was obvious her passion was for Shaw. It was for that same reason that Zoe kept her inclination toward Sameen under tight wraps. That was a drama to be avoided at all costs. Root’s reaction would not be pretty. Shaw herself would be all heat, she thought, no drama.

She glanced at her now, quiet, intense, a very appealing presence beside her, and then looked up to scan the horizon, yet again. To her shock, figures had emerged from the trees while she was woolgathering. Startled, she immediately leveled her rifle in their direction.

“Get down,” Shaw commanded.

“Don’t shoot,” a man cried out.

Zoe dropped to the snow as the other woman did, positioned beside her. She aimed her rifle, resting on her shoulder, supported by her braced elbows, as she’d been taught, and tried to sight the approaching figures. Her heart was thumping. She didn’t feel the cold, only the unyielding surface of the ground. It was hard for her to focus through the scope and she told herself to breathe.

“Sweet Jesus,” Sameen said, looking through field glasses. “Lower your gun. I know them.”

“What?” She was stunned to see the woman spring to her feet and take off at a run in their direction.

Relief and disbelief warred with the adrenaline triggered in her body. Zoe gratefully engaged the rifle’s safety and stood up, feeling slightly shaky. Two of the people approaching with Shaw were were walking normally, though she could sense the weariness in their gait. One was staggering, propped between them. As Zoe watched, John appeared, moving at a run toward them. When he reached them he lifted the injured one in his arms, moving swiftly with Shaw at his side back to the hospital.

~

Jason Greenfield looked down into the bowl of hot cereal, little hills of tender-looking grains in a winding stream of milk. The rising steam smelled like nuts, like butter. To be holding such a thing, to look up and see Harold Finch, Root, sitting across the table from him — it was impossible, but the warm bowl in his hands said it was true. Daniel, whose life had seemed to be fading before their eyes, was at last in the care of someone who could help him. 

Root looked like she was bristling with questions, her eyes bright. Harold clearly had just as many but his eyes were misty and full of concern. Daniel Casey’s condition, their ordeal, had hit him very hard.

“Please eat,” Harold said.

Jason felt Tatsu’s hand on his leg, a squeeze of encouragement, a soft but emphatic sound from him that bid him to do what Harold said. Jason looked at him, wanting to apologize — for everything. For his doubts, for how hard he’d fought the journey — for things his friend did not even know, like the way he’d silently prayed that Daniel would die and be put out of his misery. Tatsuro’s expression was tender, his eyes held no reproach, only warmth.

“Eat,” he said, and his hand moved from Jason’s thigh to stroke his back. “It’s good.” As if he were a child balking at some strange food. Jason managed a nod and tried to smile, for him, and for Harold who was still watching him anxiously.

“I’m okay,” he told them, and cleared his throat. He gathered a deep spoonful. The act of filling his mouth felt like an act of moving toward life, away from despair.


	11. orbiting satellites

The moment arrived when satellites aligned and the machine’s search for admin succeeded. A burst of data held in waiting, prepared for myriad devices that might or might not surround the fragile, treasured human it sought were triggered. For precious fractions of a second the machine was in direct contact with both admin and the primary asset. The image of them together was captured for enhancement and study that beckoned like food to the machine.

~

Harold felt almost apologetic toward the women of their group for his relationship with John. It seemed wrong, somehow. The fact that John Reese was so singularly, physically devoted to him — if he thought about it, it seemed wrong. Selfish. In this small world he, a person incapable of bearing a child, should not monopolize a valuable, desirable mate so completely. He voiced these thoughts late one night in bed. The conversation was sleepy — at least on John’s part. Harold could sense him drifting, his limbs relaxed around him in a way that seduced Harold with sleepiness though he didn’t succumb.

“In a survival sense,” Harold said. “Populating the future.” It sounded awkward, spoken out loud. He’d never subscribed to any such strictly reproductive view of sex in the world as it existed before the virus, but then, he’d never considered a world in which the very existence of humanity could be threatened. John said nothing and Harold thought he must be asleep.

Beside them on the night table his laptop was open, running programs that he liked to check on if he awakened in the night. He found the lights and activity on his screen soothing. The private bedroom was a concession to John. Harold would have been happy to continue sleeping in the kitchen, near his work, consigning their physical relationship to a now and then occurrence during the day. But they’d compromised. The room that now functioned as their bedroom must have been a small office for an administrator, just off the kitchen itself. Harold agreed to the private space if John agreed to let him have the active computer. 

John stirred a little behind him. “Your genes,” he said, his voice soft, on the cusp of sleep, “… should be passed on, not mine.” Harold felt John’s nose nudge the back of his head, followed by a warm kiss.

“Perhaps,” Harold allowed, somewhat touched by the sentiment but unconvinced, “if one desired … small, near-sighted children.” More sleepy kisses ruffled the hair on the back of his head. The simple caresses caused shivers and lightened the weight of his thoughts. His eyes closed with pleasure.

“Adorable, brilliant children,” John whispered.

Harold smiled at this sweet assessment of him. The subject of the future could wait, he decided, giving in to the warmth of John’s embrace. The tide of his thoughts grew quiet.

The sat phone rang and a bright window opened with a flash on his screen — like a splash of cold water startling him back to full wakefulness. John gave a start behind him. Harold fumbled for his glasses but even without them he could read the words on his laptop screen.

*Father I Am Here.*

Data poured in a cascade.

Speaking of children. Children, indeed. His child. Somehow, some way, it survived. Harold was stunned but wanted desperately to examine the information still pouring forth as the machine’s data burst decompressed. Rising suddenly was an impossibility for him but he pushed at the mattress to lever himself up and felt John’s hands supporting and helping him.

“The machine?” John said.

“It’s alive. I don’t know how, I don’t know where.”

The door to their room swung open and Root was there.

“I heard her,” she said. 

Harold pulled the covers across his naked lap and at last found his glasses.

~

John wasn’t crazy about Root barging into their bedroom, but at least they had a bedroom to be barged into. He had the small satisfaction (in the midst of their excitement) of her seeing her take in the fact that he was in bed, naked, with Harold. Her innuendos and teasing through the years clearly passed right over Harold’s head but he had known that she knew how he felt. He didn’t doubt that Root was at the top of the list of women who’d agree that Harold Finch’s genius genetic material ought to be preserved. She’d like to personally see to it; he’d thought that for a long time, long before this crisis. He saw it in her eyes and had privately believed it was part of why she’d kidnapped him.

Semi-sharing a bed in the kitchen was fine in the beginning. John’s main priority had been to keep the man warm, to give him a reasonably comfortable place to steal some sleep when he could. They’d rarely had a chance to rest at the same time but when they did John hadn’t hesitated to lie down beside him. The bed in the kitchen had served the purpose too of getting people used to finding them together, even fully clothed, very close; accepting that there might be something physical happening. So, if she now sat beside Harold on the bed, the two of them focussed on the laptop screen, she had to acknowledge that it was the bed he shared with John.

He dressed, knowing sleep was not on the agenda, not for a while, and then he gently intervened.

“You guys have multiple screens in the kitchen. Root, let the man get dressed. We’ll see you in there.”

“Sure,” she said, and he didn’t miss that she let her hand rest briefly on Harold’s thigh, “See you in a couple minutes.”


	12. the end, for now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A jump forward in time. Could be a year, could be two years. I confess I do not have the wherewithal right now to concentrate enough to figure everything out. Apologies. What a woeful subject this turned out to be! For obvious reasons, I have no appetite to write or envision this bleak world when RL is so filled with panic and despair. Because I experience unfinished stories like the haunting of ghosts, I must, nevertheless, have an ending. And it must be happy.

On a cold morning in December, Harold slid his feet into the cushiony slippers that waited by the bed, precisely where he needed them to be. It wasn’t easy to leave the warmth of the covers, to leave John’s side, but the day beckoned.

In the sitting area near the front door, he pushed the curtain along the rod as quietly as he could, looking back at John in bed on the other side of the cottage, watching to be sure he wasn’t disturbing him. The man slept on, as he had through the lighting of the gas ring under the kettle. Harold had carefully listened for the sound of the burbling hot water, the first hint of boiling, to forestall the possibility of the kettle whistling. His tea was fragrant and the cup warm in his hands. 

The sky was growing light. There were delicate hints of pale rose amid the darker blue and gray shadows in the snow. Harold wanted to see the bird feeder. A pair of goldfinches startled up from the tray of seeds and nuts, surprised by his movement at the window. They would come back. Finches, doves, nuthatches, jays, and woodpeckers were among his regular visitors. The occasional wily squirrel also managed to reach the feeder that John had built in view of the cottage window.

Harold settled in his armchair to watch the avian comings and goings. The dark, distant shape of the hospital’s Victorian architecture became more distinct as the sun rose higher, the bricks a deep red against the backdrop of snow. The place still functioned as a hospital but had become so much more; a town hall, a community center, a school.

Their cottage, built by John with the help of their friends, wasn’t the only one within the perimeters of the stronghold. People had come and continued to come. The machine, he’d learned, had sent many texts of its coordinates at the end and continued to reach out in search of survivors. Jason, Daniel and Tatsuro had been the first of their friends to appear. The latest to arrive was Paul Carter, the man that Joss had once loved, divorced and then grown to trust again, Taylor’s father. The reunion of the family had been among the most joyous and hope-filled events of the past year.

Harold’s eye was drawn by a newcomer at the feeder. A cardinal, its brilliant color made the scene worthy of a Christmas card. Beautiful. A sound behind him — the door of the wood stove, the knocking sound of wood being rearranged, the fire stoked. So, he’d woken John after all.

“Sorry,” he said. “I thought I was being quiet.” He felt John’s hands come to light on his shoulders and a second later the warmth of a kiss on the top of his head.

“You were. You shouldn’t bother.”

Harold smiled. They’d exchanged these words or ones to the same effect, countless times. They would, no doubt, continue to say them on subsequent mornings, switching roles depending upon which of them woke earlier. It was somewhat less apt to happen when John was the first — his ability to move soundlessly seemed almost preternatural.

“You’re quiet as a cat.”

“No.” John’s touch caressed. “I just miss you more than you miss me in bed.”

That made Harold smile. He very much doubted it was true but it was sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. If you want the comfort of watching birds peck at seeds, and have no view of them out your own window, try Cornell University's live feeder watch cam. I first discovered it for the benefit of my cat. Since he died I have continued to watch it for my own sake! I hope we all will emerge as happily as Harold and John in the world I created for them!


End file.
